Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Braves and Businessmen: A History of Montana, Volume III: Montana History Series, #3
    Braves and Businessmen: A History of Montana, Volume III: Montana History Series, #3
    Braves and Businessmen: A History of Montana, Volume III: Montana History Series, #3
    Ebook386 pages3 hours

    Braves and Businessmen: A History of Montana, Volume III: Montana History Series, #3

    By Greg Strandberg

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Montana's history is rich, colorful, and full of excitement in this fully-illustrated third volume of the state's history. 

    Montana Territory had 20,595 people in 1870 and the vast majority were Indians. Those Indians would fight for their lands, and much of the territory's focus was on the Indian Wars raging across the state.

    By 1900 there were 243,329 people in the State of Montana. The numbers would only continue to rise as more and more businessmen got interested in the state's natural resources.

    Mining dominated the 1880s and 1890s, even as politics were changing both locally and nationally. The Panic of 1893 took the wind from the silver industry in the state, but copper mining remained strong. And mining men like Marcus Daly and William A. Clark did everything in their power to get their way politically. It was a raucous time in the state over these three decades, and its people and places are all profiled.

    Like the first and second volumes in this Montana history series, Tribes and Trappers and Priests and Prospectors, this third volume takes a biographical approach. Montana's history is told through the stories of the people who lived here, and from those stories we're better able to understand how the state came to be what it is today.

    Discover why Montana is called "The Last Best Place" in this third volume of Montana history – buy this book right now!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreg Strandberg
    Release dateMay 19, 2014
    ISBN9781310572753
    Braves and Businessmen: A History of Montana, Volume III: Montana History Series, #3
    Author

    Greg Strandberg

    Greg Strandberg was born and raised in Helena, Montana. He graduated from the University of Montana in 2008 with a BA in History.When the American economy began to collapse Greg quickly moved to China, where he became a slave for the English language industry. After five years of that nonsense he returned to Montana in June, 2013.When not writing his blogs, novels, or web content for others, Greg enjoys reading, hiking, biking, and spending time with his wife and young son.

    Read more from Greg Strandberg

    Related to Braves and Businessmen

    Titles in the series (7)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Corporate & Business History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Rich In Colorado History

      Jan 22, 2019

      Rich In Colorado History
      4 min read

    • Article

      Must See, Must Read

      Nov 26, 2019

      Must See, Must Read
      12 min read

    • Article

      Spotsylvania Shock Wave

      Apr 26, 2022

      Spotsylvania Shock Wave
      21 min read

    • Article

      For The Sins Of Geronimo?

      Jul 6, 2021

      Geronimo—man and myth—has long cast a shadow of controversy over the Chiricahua Apache people and the landscape of American Western history. In life and death he was both celebrated and vilified. Perhaps both reactions were warranted. One fact remain

      1 min read

    • Article

      The ‘Real’ Las Vegas

      Aug 31, 2021

      The ‘Real’ Las Vegas
      3 min read

    • Article

      Kings Mountain

      Nov 29, 2018

      Kings Mountain
      9 min read

    • Article

      Clusters Of Earps

      Sep 29, 2020

      Clusters Of Earps
      10 min read

    • Article

      Apacheria

      Dec 21, 2021

      Apacheria
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Parting

      Jul 6, 2021

      The Parting
      10 min read

    • Article

      Nevada’s Silver Lining

      Nov 27, 2018

      Nevada’s Silver Lining
      2 min read

    • Article

      This Land Is My Land

      Nov 29, 2019

      This Land Is My Land
      19 min read

    • Article

      Montana

      Jun 27, 2023

      FAMILY, HISTORY AND PROGRESS COLLIDE in the popular TV series “Yellowstone” and its various spinoffs, much of them set and filmed in Montana. If your roots in the state go as deep as the Dutton family’s, read on for how you can find your own genealog

      6 min read

    • Article

      From The Ground Up

      Sep 29, 2020

      From The Ground Up
      10 min read

    • Article

      Going West

      Oct 27, 2022

      Going West
      5 min read

    • Article

      Chief Buffalo Goes to Washington

      Dec 4, 2023

      Chief Buffalo Goes to Washington
      16 min read

    • Article

      Sins Of The Fathers And Mothers

      Mar 4, 2024

      "Oh let me, let me kill them,” one woman cried, a knife in one hand, a rasping file in the other, as she struggled with the soldier trying to restrain her. “They killed my husband. They burned my house and child. Oh, let me through.” It was November

      5 min read

    • Article

      WATCHDOGS Of The CHEYENNE

      Oct 26, 2021

      WATCHDOGS Of The CHEYENNE
      11 min read

    • Article

      Cherry Creek, Nevada

      Jul 28, 2020

      Cherry Creek, Nevada
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Braves and Businessmen

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Braves and Businessmen - Greg Strandberg

      BRAVES AND BUSINESSMEN

      A History of Montana, Volume Three

      Greg Strandberg

      Big Sky Words, Missoula

      Copyright © 2014 by Big Sky Words

      D2D Edition, 2015

      Written in the United States of America

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Also by Greg Strandberg

      Non-Fiction

      Tribes and Trappers: A History of Montana, Volume One

      Priests and Prospectors: A History of Montana, Volume Two

      Hustlers and Homesteaders: A History of Montana, Volume Four

      From Heaven to Earth: Ancient Chinese History, 8500 – 1046 BC

      Connect with Greg Strandberg

      www.bigskywords.com

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Part I – The 1870s

      The Marias Massacre – A Montana Disgrace

      Helena Rises to the Occasion

      Politics and Panic in Helena

      The Coming of the Railroads

      The Black Hills Expedition of 1874

      Exploring Yellowstone

      The Great Sioux War

      The Battle of Powder River

      The Battle of the Rosebud

      The Battle of the Little Bighorn

      The Battle of Warbonnet Creek

      The Battle of Slim Buttes

      The Battle of Cedar Creek

      The Dull Knife Fight

      The Battle of Wolf Mountain

      The Nez Perce War

      The Battle of White Bird Canyon

      The Battle of Cottonwood

      The Battle of the Clearwater

      The Meeting at Fort Fizzle

      The Battle of the Big Hole

      The Battle of Camas Creek

      The Nez Perce in Yellowstone Park

      The Battle of Canyon Creek

      The Battle of Cow Island Landing

      The Battle of Bear Paw

      Surrender At Last

      Part II – The 1880s

      Henry Villard, James J. Hill and Montana Railroads

      Paris Gibson and the Start of Great Falls

      Helena and Montana Politics in the 1880s

      William Clark, Marcus Daly, and the Start of Butte

      The Hard Winter of 1886-7

      The Clark-Daly Feud, Election of 1888, and Statehood

      Part III – The 1890s

      The Black Eagle Dam and Montana’s Energy Industry

      Silver and the Panic of 1893

      Montana Politics in the 1890s

      Ella Knowles and Montana Populism

      The Montana Sapphire Boom

      Consolidation in the Butte Mines

      Montana at the Close of the Century

      Conclusion

      Endnotes

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Preview of Volume IV

      Introduction

      Montana in 1870 was a simmering cauldron ready to explode. Mining was taking off, and new profits were being sought. Political dealings were tumultuous, and appointed officials came and went at an alarming rate. Indian affairs were terrible, and tribes lost ever more ground with each passing year.

      Montana Territory was still small, population-wise. Before the gold rushes of 1862-3 there’d been fewer than 700 people in Montana. By the time the 1870 census was conducted there were over 18,000 white men, nearly 2,000 Chinese, and almost 200 African Americans. The Bureau of Indian Affairs calculated that there were 19,300 Indians living in the whole territory.

      Hopes for statehood diminished as growth slowed over the decade. Cities were growing up, most away from the areas that’d gotten the territory started in the first place. The largest city was Helena, which had just over 3,100 people. The gold camps, on the other hand, were losing people at an alarming rate. By 1870 the population of Virginia City was just 867, that of Bannack only 381. Butte had just sixteen residents in 1869.

      It was clear that the population centers of the territory were changing by the close of the decade and Montana was about to head nowhere unless things started moving. Tensions simmered as people sought answers, and new ways to create wealth. Businessmen came to put down roots while looking to the future of the territory. New mining techniques were developed that ensured the area would be economically-vibrant for some time to come. And in Washington appointments were made that put Montana on the footing she needed to move into the 20th century with confidence.

      Montana changed a lot over the three decades from 1870 to 1900, and discovering what occurred then can give us a greater insight into what’s happening in the state now. The days of the priests and prospectors were coming to an end, just as those of the tribes and trappers had before them. But Montana’s future looked bright as it and the nation headed into the Gilded Age of the businessmen and monopolists.

      Part I – The 1870s

      Montana’s simmering tensions found an outlet early in the decade, and pointed to what lay ahead for the territory during the years that followed.

      Indians had always been a concern to Montanans, usually because they were seen as a threat. The best way to deal with that threat had always been to remove the Indians, taking more and more land from them and sticking them on reservations. This was seen especially in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, an area that would lead to much misfortune in Montana.

      Those policies would take up the second half of the 1870s in Montana, while the first was taken up with politics, panic, and prostitution. Helena was built on the elicit trade that catered to the miners, and madams were a strong part of the tax base.

      They may have been one of the reasons why Helena was chosen over Virginia City as the permanent seat of the Legislature, which began meeting there in 1876. A few years before that, however, Montana got another stain on her reputation when an Indian massacre occurred, one that caught the attention of the nation.

      The Marias Massacre – A Montana Disgrace

      Sunday, January 23, 1870 dawned a cold day in Montana. It was about to grow a whole lot colder.

      Major Eugene Baker, a man known for his fondness for alcohol, was leading his Second U.S. Regiment cavalrymen through the snow and toward a band of Piegan Blackfeet Indians led by Mountain Chief.

      File:Philip Sheridan 01009a restored.jpg

      General Philip Sheridan, c 1855-65

      He’d been ordered to do so by General Philip Sheridan, the head of the Department of the Missouri, which was the department of the US Army responsible for protecting the Great Plains. The reason? Horses.

      A Horse Deal Gone Bad

      The reason Sheridan had done this was because of one man, Malcolm Clarke. Clarke was a white trader who’d moved to Montana and who had some of his horses stolen from him in 1867 around Helena, and specifically the Sieben Ranch. The theft had been perpetrated by a Piegan Indian named Owl Child.

      Malcolm Clarke (date unknown)

      At that time the Blackfeet were three separate tribes: the Blackfeet, Blood, and Piegan. The horses were stolen because Clarke owed them as a debt, according to Owl Chief. After all, he argued, it was Clarke that’d caused him to lose his own horses in the first place.

      Clarke wasn’t buying that for a second so he and his son tracked down Owl Child and beat the living daylights out of him. That might have settled the matter, but the beating occurred in front of other Blackfeet Indians. Owl Child had lost face and had to regain his honor.

      Sieben Ranch area outside Helena

      On August 17, 1869, Owl Child and several of his Piegan friends tracked Clarke down, shot him to death, and nearly killed his son. The killing shocked the people of Montana and they demanded that something be done. The Blackfeet were given two weeks to hand over Owl Child’s dead body. When the two weeks were up Sheridan ordered Baker to strike them hard. (Welch, 30)

      And so Baker found himself in the freezing snow on a cold January morning, a village full of Piegan women and children before him. He most likely took a drink and thought on what to do. His choice would prove to be a fateful one.

      Montana and the Blackfeet in the Mid-19th Century

      Whites had always ignored the land claims of the Blackfeet Indians, and in the last few years of the 1860s the tribes were really faring bad. The Blackfeet had originally been named as one of the tribes that would claim areas of Montana. That’d been established with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.

      To further cement that deal, which many Blackfeet felt hadn’t included them enough, Washington Territory governor Isaac Stevens travelled to them in 1855 and made a new treaty with them specifically. This treaty, called Lame Bull’s Treaty, gave both the Blackfeet and the Gros Ventre large swaths of Southwestern Montana.

      By 1865, however, white settlers were encroaching on their lands. Homesteaders were flocking to the new territory of Montana for gold, and treaties were drawn up to exclude the Blackfeet from the very lands that’d been given to them by Stevens, who by that time was long dead from wounds suffered at the Battle of Chantilly during the Civil War. No one cared about them, and the same thing happened again in 1868.

      What’s more, John Bozeman had blazed his trail right through their lands, angering them further. Coupled with the rising resentment of the Sioux tribes further to the east toward the U.S. Army and white settlers and you had a real powder keg waiting to explode.

      And explode it did during Red Cloud’s War, the conflict that swept through much of the area to the south of Montana Territory in those years. The US government came out victorious and many Indian tribes were left wanting. Things were coming to a boil once again.

      The Piegan Blackfeet Village of Owl Child

      The village that Eugene Baker stared at as he drank his liquor that cold January morning rested on the banks of the Marias River. You’ll find the Marias River near Cut Bank, Montana, right at the confluence of Cut Bank Creek and Two Medicine River. It flows for sixty miles before spilling into Lake Elwell, and then another eighty miles after that before it flows into the Missouri River near Loma, Montana.

      Marias River

      In 1869 there was no twenty-seven mile long Lake Elwell, however, as the Tiber Dam wouldn’t be constructed for another eighty-seven years, in 1956. And the place where the attack occurred was nearly 100 miles to the west of it, around Willow Rounds, thirty miles from today’s Shelby, Montana.

      Baker left Fort Shaw with a total of six companies, which comes out to about 200 men. And the weather they went out in was a frigid -43 °F, which they bore primarily at night, when they marched.

      It’s easy to think the men were making good time, moving as fast as they could so as to be out in the cold for as little time as possible. And perhaps that’s the reason they stopped at the first village they came to, which wasn’t even that of Owl Child, but of Chief Heavy Runner, who had nothing at all to do with it.

      So why didn’t Baker know, or why didn’t anyone tell him he was at the wrong place? There are many theories for this. Perhaps the men were cold and tired, and wanted to get back to Fort Shaw as soon as possible, and if that meant attacking the first Indian village they came to regardless if it was the right one, then so be it.

      One story has it that Baker was warned, most likely by his half-Mandan guide Joseph Kipp, but he was suspicious and mistrustful of the man, and even threatened to shoot him. And it could very well have been that Baker was drunk and intent upon seeing the job through no matter what. It was common knowledge that Baker was a drinker, but then many in the army at that time drank.

      Baker Ninth from Left (leaning on railing), 1870 at Fort Ellis

      The men arrived very early in the morning, near dawn, and Chief Heavy Runner himself came out to greet the men. Instead of greeting him warmly, however, the soldiers opened fire. Accounts of children running through the snow and being cut down with gun and bayonet dominate the accounts of the battle. It’s what its name implied it was – a massacre.

      The Aftermath of the Massacre

      By the time it was all said and done there were Indians lying dead everywhere. The soldiers suffered but one death, and that from a man who fell off his horse. Baker himself counted 173 Indians in his report, as well as more than 100 captured women and 300 captured horses. Indian estimates were higher, around 217 dead, and mostly the women, children, and elderly.

      The people of Montana couldn’t have been happier. On February 10, 1870, The Bozeman Pick and Plow newspaper thanked the soldiers for braving the inclement weather and the deserved though terrible punishment they inflicted on the Indians. (Schontzler)

      Not all voices were singing the Army’s praises, however, and it was actually from within the army that the first calls questioning the whole affair originated.

      General Alfred Sully, the Interior Department superintendent for Indian affairs, wondered why there were so few men of fighting age that’d been killed. Lieutenant William Pease, who was then the Blackfeet agent for Indian affairs, told him that just thirty-three men had been killed. He was also quick to point out that ninety women and fifty-five babies were slaughtered that day.

      Somehow that information was leaked to the press in Washington and things really went downhill. By March the Chicago Tribune was calling the event a most disgraceful butchery, even while Phil Sheridan defended the actions of Baker. He wasn’t alone, either, as The Helena Daily Herald likened Baker’s actions to hunting down wolves.

      The support wasn’t enough, however, and Baker was feeling the pressure. He made a new report that quadrupled the number of men killed that day in January, from thirty-three to around 140. And it worked. Washington and the U.S. Army covered the massacre up and it was largely forgotten.

      President Ulysses S. Grant, c 1869-77

      No one was ever tried for the crimes committed there, although the Army did suffer somewhat. Before the massacre they’d been pressuring President Ulysses S. Grant to grant them oversight of Indian Reservations. Following that day in January that oversight was given to the Interior Department instead of the U.S. Army. What’s more, U.S. Army officers would no longer be allowed to serve as Indian agents, something that’d now only fall to clergymen.

      Eugene M. Baker was brought up on charges of drunkenness at a later date, and he’d eventually die in 1884 at the age of 48. For the Piegan Blackfeet it was a different story. However much they may have wanted to fight, they couldn’t. Already their numbers had been drastically decreased by smallpox.

      So what ultimately happened? The papers applauded the version they wanted to accept instead of reporting the facts, the U.S. Army expunged their own records of the event fearing more public backlash, and business went on as usual and like nothing had happened. Overall the Marias Massacre, or Baker Massacre as it’s sometimes called, is a stain on American history and a shame for Montana.

      Helena Rises to the Occasion

      Malcolm Clarke lived just outside Helena, but Indian threats were never a serious concern for the growing city. Getting all of the gold and silver out of the ground was, and it ensured the city would grow into a thriving metropolis in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and one with more millionaires than anywhere else in the world.

      Helena was the place to live if you wanted to make money in Montana during the 1870s and it was easy to understand why. From the first mines in the mid-1860s to the heavy industry of the mid-1880s, $3.6 billion in gold was taken from the ground in and around the city. Most of that came out during the bonanza years of 1864-8 when common miners flocked to the area.

      By the 1880s the rich had built lavish houses for themselves on the west side of town, right up against Mount Helena. Many overlooked the mining camps that still dotted the landscape, and the growing city that was catering to them. Banks and businesses rose up, as well as a red-light district. In fact, it was the early brothel owners that did so much to stimulate the local economy when it was first starting.

      Helena in 1879

      Run by madams, these businesswomen were respected members of the community. One such was Josephine Chicago Joe Airey, who managed to become a large and influential landowner in the area. She operated in a man’s world and thrived, and Helena may not have risen so rapidly or grown so quickly without her.

      Josephine Chicago Joe Airey

      Josephine Airey was born Mary Welch in 1844 in Ireland. At the age of fourteen she came to New York with nothing and became a domestic servant and even worked in the sweatshops. At some point she began working as a prostitute, perhaps because it paid better, and maybe even earned her more respect. She changed her name to Josephine Airey as well, and by the 1860s had moved to Chicago.

      Josephine Chicago Joe Airey, c 1880s

      Sometime over the next few years she met Al Hankins, a Chicago gambler sometimes called Prince Albert Hankins. Hankins spoke about the gold rush that’d taken place in Bannack, and eventually he joined his brothers in going there.

      Airey hung on in Chicago until 1867 when she headed west, arriving first in Fort Benton and then in Helena. On April 5 of that year she used a large amount of her considerable savings and bought up some property to start her own brothel.

      The place cost $375 down with another $675 due in three months. Located on Bridge Street, one of the main streets of the red-light district, the business wasn’t likely to have a problem coming up with that kind of money.

      Helena was a city of men in the 1860s and few women lasted long. The winters were

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1